Jodi Hills

So this is who I am – a writer that paints, a painter that writes…

Tag Archives: poet


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Taut.

She was not unlike most of the super powers that I watched on Saturday mornings. All were contained in the tightest of fashion. It’s why, I imagined they could move through the world so easily. And so it was with Mrs. Bergstrom. She stood in front of our first grade class at Washington Elementary. No loose ends. Her hair slicked back in a perfect bun. Her black pencil skirt smoothed without wrinkle, making it impossible to see where the chalkboard ended and her waist began. That’s how all the words got in, I thought. This seamless transition. And wasn’t that her superpower, all those words that she spelled out, sounded out, drew out. I wanted some of that power. Just to stand in all that “super” for even a moment. I leaned forward in my desk. Pulled up my neck. Straightened my back. Reached one leg behind the chair to make myself into the straightest line. To create a path for all that knowledge she was passing our way.

It’s easy to let a day go by. To let the passage of time slouch us over. To drape in the fray of worry and get caught in every dark moment. But that wasn’t how we were taught. Not how I was taught. So I wipe the chalk from my hands and smooth them down my skirt and I stand. I stand tall. “Gather it in,” my heart tells my brain — be taut — despair can only slide down, slide off. And it occurs to me how similar the words are. This taut and taught. And it straightens me. Lifts me. Letting go the fray, I Bergstrom to the front of the morning.  

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Love’s measuring.

Even when I scrub it, there is proof that it is used, loved, every morning. The handle knows my palm. I open and tap out yesterday’s grounds through the kitchen window to fertilize Trini Lopez — the wintering lemon tree. I know how much water to add by the sound. The coffee is sprinkled gently by heart, along with the scrambled reciting of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, (often forgetting his last name, but always remembering “coffee spoons.”) I twist on the top and place it on the stove. The gas click click clicks in perfect rhythm and my morning’s measure is complete. 

It’s never just coffee. Nor the rising sun. It’s the accounting of love’s measure. No matter the night. This morning will be measured beginning with my coffee pot.  Life will offer you all kinds of starts. Recalling “what he said,” or “what she did,” or “how I should have,” or “when will I,”…. And I can easily get caught up in them all, until I realize I need an empty hand to pick up the handle that holds the coffee that starts my day, and I let everything else go. And so it begins….

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Gravel to pavement.

It’s easy to imagine that everyone is experiencing the same weather. The sunny and 80 degrees are beginning to drop as we head out of California. I have to admit, I often forgot that it was still winter. While I was wearing shorts, most were bundled. 

And that’s the thing, I suppose, we adapt to our surroundings perhaps just a little too easily. We come to believe that everyone is having the same experience. Living the same life. The same wants and needs as our inner circles. But it’s just not true. 

It becomes more clear when you roam the country. The variances from state to state, from city to city, from neighborhood to neighborhood are extraordinary. It doesn’t always make clear why people make the choices they make, but it does explain why the choices are different. 

Has it always been this way? I think I first noticed the difference when I was in grade school. My world, of course, was Van Dyke Road. I was aware of the change from gravel to pavement. I had ridden my bike beyond our road, onto the tar, around the lake, over the railroad tracks, past Big Ole into town, a million times. But it only became truly clear when I went for a sleepover to Barbie’s house in Victoria Heights. Was it the move from road to heights? The change from Van Dyke to Victoria? I wasn’t sure. But it was different. They called it a development. I didn’t have the words for it then, but it sounded important. And my mental vocabulary told me that it was different. But that different to me, never meant bad. I wore my gravel like a badge, and I rode on.

When did it become bad — this different? I’d like to think it hasn’t for me, but am I paying attention. I have to pay attention. We all have to pay attention. We all change and grow at different times. And some don’t get the luxury of either. The weather is changing. The very climates of our being. 

I don’t have the answers, but I do believe in the randomness of it all. Life is constant change. In this we can take comfort. I am reminded of the quote by Hal Borland: “No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.”  I’m counting on it. May we all. 

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The art of living.

I suppose we all hope for it — a little of the magic to rub off. The plaque on the outside wall says the author lived here. I stand in sturdy on the sidewalk, ready to catch any discarded words from a hundred years ago. Words left hanging in the cement’s cracking, perhaps ready, in this moment of my standing, to release themselves. I open my pockets and umbrella my shirt. 

I go to museums and restaurants. Vowing to paint this. To make this. I will turn the kitchen table into the coffee shop, and sip slowly, slip gently into the romance of it all. And isn’t that what we’re here for, after all. To enjoy the art of being alive, but also to leave a touch of the magic behind for others to climb upon, to rest upon, to become. 

I was lucky. I saw it early. I sat at my grandparents’ kitchen table, and held. The wood had already absorbed them. These Hvezdas. Scents of kolaches and pipe tobacco. Imprints of elbows calculating and cards slapped down in victory. Dice shook. Recipes tweaked. Books of crops and yields gone over and over again. Radio vibrations of Paul Harvey and rain forecasts. Over it hands shook. On it hands folded. And underneath, four angular legs that stuck out too far for a racing toddler, but held strong, this sturdy table, this gathering of life. 

I take it with me everywhere. I’m sprinkling it now on this kitchen table where I type the morning words. Reach out your hands, your heart, the magic is falling.

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And the peace. Smiled.

My favorite underpants are proudly tagged with the notion that if you buy three pairs you will save a significant amount of money. I have yet to find three in my size, in one location at the same time, but I love them, so I buy them one at a time, ever hopeful. 

Maybe it’s because I love the smooth fit. Or the way they stay on while wearing a summer dress (like if you suddenly have to burst into a run at an airport — if you know you know). Or the undeniable comfort it gives me, just after a wash, having a full drawer of clean underpants. Whatever the reason, I find myself patient with my underpants. And whether or not they can give it to me in a batch of three, I will love them. Would that I were so patient with everything and everyone, even myself.

I know that patience is a virtue. I also know the furious speed at which I have tried to get through things. I suppose there are a million ways to learn it. And I’ve tried close that many. And as unconventional as it may be, today I’m going to try the underpants method. Surely, if I can travel from Target to Target, bundle, head down, bracing the cold, the wind, find a clerk, ask for the brand, thumb through countless pairs, sliding the wrongly placed items along the rack, with little success, then yes, certainly I could be a little more patient with myself. With others. And if nothing else, it does make me smile. Laugh even. And in “a moment of grin” is always a good place to catch yourself.

Enjoy a laugh today. And check for panty lines.


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The wax and the walk.

It was an Italian woman who sent a message to me in France,  after purchasing a picture of mine in the USA — the piece, “On her way.” There are no barriers of language or obstacles of distance, when we speak and listen with the heart. 

Yesterday I bought wax to seal envelopes, with the symbol of a laurel. Knowing the words are indeed the laurels, the symbols of triumph, that we must never rest upon. It’s easy to forget about the handwritten letter, when it’s so simple to text, to email, or to do nothing at all. And I am just as guilty. Oh, I still wish for the letter each day as I head to the mailbox. But it’s rare that I send one. But I was fueled by the words in Italian and French and English and I was indeed on my way. Laurels at hand and heart.

I need to do it more often. It feels so good. To take the time. I smiled seeing the dancer on the front of my card, picturing her at her recital. Tickled when I found the purple marker, recalling the color of her bedroom walls. Writing slowly without distortion, knowing she would be sounding out the words in English, her newly second language. Heating the wax. Pressing in the laurel. Walking to the mailbox, just after the untimely rain. My heart was on its way.

I like it when you tell me that you sit down each morning with your coffee. Open your tablet or phone, and read the words I have written. In a sea of posts that are meant to offend and humiliate, to separate and push, please know that my effort is always meant to include and gather, to connect and lift. I may not always succeed, (“get there” as they say), but if you can see me, within the wax and the walk, you will know my heart is on the way. 

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There is motion at your front door.

Maybe it’s because I want to hear it. Maybe it’s because Mr. Iverson told us in the first grade that they could be about anything, the poems that he wanted us to write — the poems that he would inscribe neatly on the black board and our hearts, measured out note by note. And they were special. Lyrical. The ordinary things, our houses and shoes. Our games and basements and cars and trees. They all became magical because we called them poetry. 

We recently got a new doorbell for our gate. It is connected to our phones. It gives us the alert whenever motion is detected, even when it’s us. When I go for my morning walk, just past the gate, she pings in my ear and says, “There is motion at your front door.” And every day it is the poem that starts my journey. There IS motion at my front door – and isn’t it a good reminder! I always smile. Because isn’t it what we’ve been told in movies and books. By philosophers and teachers. “When you stop learning you die.” “It’s over when you stop dreaming.” “Sharks never stop swimming. You gotta keep moving.” The list goes on. It’s all about motivation. And could there be a better place to start than your front door? So I hear it. I feel it. There IS motion! I AM alive! And so I begin with my doorbell’s poem, off in search of another. Because we get to decide. We hold the chalk that turns the cursive words into prayers and sets the path of our journey. 

I have to go now. Begin. Create something. There is motion at my heart’s door. 

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“Some.”

It was pretty clear from the start that I wasn’t going to be a saint. But a poet? Maybe.

I knew she loved poems. My mother. She tucked me in each night with Emily Dickinson. I was safe and feathered (the sweet spot where hope lives).

I suppose I saw early on how the words lifted her. How even in her darkest hour, they offered this light. I wanted to be a part of that. That lifting light.

Once I started looking, I could see it. You had to want to see it, but it was there — the poetry of our town. You had to pass the giant Viking statue on main street to get to my school. The giant Viking that claimed us as the “Birthplace of America.” Written on his shield, what could be more poetic than this? Inside Washington Elementary, Mr. Iverson brought the bouncing words and notes into our kindergarten music class. The librarian read the words aloud that soon we would learn to spell in Mrs. Berstrom’s first grade classroom. Words screamed from monkey bars and whispered in lavatory lines. Words I scribbled in crayon and revealed to my mother at bedtime. Hope lived.

Poetry winded through my wet hair as I raced on my bicycle from Lake Latoka. Poems ran beneath my sanded feet in the ballpark. Waved through the farm fields of my grandfather. The open windows of my grandma’s car. Bounced upon the neighbor’s screen doors. Crackled in the summer gravel of Van Dyke Road. Fell from autumn trees. Rested in winter snows. And returned with spring — just as promised. Summer bikes once again pulled from garages.

I attached the playing card to the wheel beneath my banana seat. The joke would now be on my brother, because he could no longer ask me to play “52 pickup” – now it would be 51. The click-clacking echoed through the streets as I pedaled. What was making the sound? Was it the wheel? The card? Or the wind?

And so it was with the poem. Who was writing it? Was it me? My mom? The town? The words echoed in my heart. I wrote them on paper. And we were saved.

They don’t make me want to go back, but pay attention to the place I’m in — the poem that is gently click-clacking right outside my window. A love that keeps lifting. Safe. And feathered.

“EMILY: “Does anyone ever realize life while they live it…every, every minute?”

STAGE MANAGER: “No. Saints and poets maybe…they do some.”

― Thornton Wilder, Our Town

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Barefoot and pajamaed.

“When the barn catches fire, I am wearing the wrong negligee…” Maxine Kumin (from her poem The Longing to be saved.)

My mother’s first fire was not on the farm where she was growing up, but the dorm of her school. She didn’t want to go away to this school, but her parents were sending her older brother Ron because it was an Ag School (meaning it finished the courses early in the year so the students could go back to work on their family farms.) It was less than an hour away by car, but with no phones, no form of communication whatsoever, the distance felt unbearable. 

Of course the fire started at the beginning of the week, not long after she was dropped off. There would be no contact with her parents until the end of the week when they came to pick her up. Forced to run from the burning dormitory, to save herself, she had to leave everything behind. She stood outside in her pajamas as the flames lit the northern sky. The neighboring dorm was saved. She was able to borrow clothes during the week from another reluctant farm girl. Returning them to her lender Friday afternoon, she stood at the school’s entrance in her pajamas, waiting for her mother.

Not many words were exchanged in that long car ride home. But she was allowed to go back to her high school in town the next year.

It wasn’t her last fire. Literally or figuratively. Through the years she would be asked to run from life’s flames and save herself. To save me. And she did it, never out of fashion.

She loved poetry. She would have loved this poem. I wish I could have found it sooner. We would have read it together. Word by word. Over and over. Laughing. Crying. Saving each other. Again and again. 

I miss her. So much. Some days the embers feel too close as I stand “barefoot and pajamaed.” But then a sweet memory appears, of joy, of laughter, of love, and I feel her car pull up into heart’s view. And I am saved.

Let’s get dressed for the day!

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A love song in silver.

I raced the stairs to his class. He was a stickler for detail. One must be on time, or you will get a “greenie.” A greenie was a small piece of green paper, denoting some poor behavior – like being late, talking out of turn, not doing an assignment. And a certain amount of greenies resulted in detention or grade reduction. Of course this was incentive enough to race the halls of Central Junior High and up the stairs to his classroom, but it was more than that, I was excited for his class, English Literature. I was excited to see him. He postured straight at the front of the class. Suited and bow-tied, a pocket filled with green paper, one finger pressed to lips like a conductor waiting for the orchestra of the English language to begin.

In his fitted plaid lime green jacket he introduced us to T.S. Eliot. He read to us in perfect pitch “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” The boys giggled. Mocked. Rhymed words with “frock” and quieted down after receiving their greenies. “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” the lyrics danced in my heart. Never to be careful, ordinary, predictable, monotonous — this was the lesson. I put it in my heart and quietly vowed the same.

In my mother’s silverware drawer, there was one spoon different from all the rest. Before I knew of words and poems, or even what was ordinary, I loved this spoon. It was the only one I ever used. My mother made sure that for each meal it was clean. My spoon. My different spoon. Not matching. Not safe. Extraordinary.

When I moved to France, the hardest thing, (the only thing that could have made me stay) was my mother. In the first weeks, my lonesome heart ran through the doubts. Had I done the right thing? No one can give you life’s permission, but I waited for a sign. A letter arrived. Small, but an odd shape. I opened it. My spoon. My different, glorious spoon — a love song in silver.

It sits by my desk. Telling me daily to choose the extraordinary. The sun comes up. I race its stairs to the beautiful unknown.

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